GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO

(1313 - 1375)

Giovanni Boccacciowas born in Florence in
1313. Well educated, he worked for a time
for his father, a successful merchant, but his
real love was literature. This he developed
during his time in Naples. He returned to
Florence in 1340, where he witnessed the
horrors of the Black Death in 1348. He first
met Petrarch in 1350, and became both his
friend and, by his own admission, his disciple.
Among his works other than the Decameron
are: Filostrato, a treatment of the story of
Troilus and Cressida; Teseida, a poem on the
story of Theseus, Palamon and Arcite (see
Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale); and the AmorosaVisione, an unfinished allegory. Boccaccio
died in 1375.